Tuesday, January 26, 2016

All The Governor’s Men

It’s not at all unusual for aides employed by governors and
presidents to make their way into lucrative businesses that are, once the aides
have left public service, profitably engaged with entities connected in one way
or another with their former bosses. Communication directors for presidents or
governors occasionally are hired by news networks that report on government
operations, or governmental aides join lucrative firms that advise businesses
or politicians how best to interface with government bigwigs. The walls that
separate politics and corporate entities that do business either with a state
or national regulatory octopus are semi-permeable.

Retired politicians sometimes accept lucrative business
opportunities with corporations they once regulated. Upon leaving the U.S.
Senate, Chris Dodd first promised he would never engage in lobbying and was
then quickly hired by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) as its chief lobbyist. Businesses
often scoop up gubernatorial, congressional or federal aides to help them
negotiate complex regulatory arrangements with their former employers, all of
which is perfectly legal. Mr. Dodd’s truth meter may have suffered a major ding
when he moved from the U.S. Senate to serve as a mouthpiece for Hollywood, but his
remuneration -- $1.2 million a year – doubtless soothed his ruffled conscience.

Governor Dannel Malloy’s former political grunts appear to
have done well for themselves. Luke Bronin, once Mr. Malloy’s General Council,
is now Mayor of Hartford, very likely thanks to his intimate association with
Mr. Malloy. Mr. Bronin replaced incumbent Democratic Mayor Pedro Segarra, who
replaced previous incumbent Democratic Mayor Eddie Perez, who
stumbled into an FBI tar pit and was charged on five extortion and bribery
counts. Mr. Perez’s conviction is being appealed. Among other of the Governor’s
men who have helped Mr. Malloy to help themselves are: Andrew Doba, formerly
Mr. Malloy’s communications director, whose firm has been hired by MMCT Venture
to facilitate construction of yet another Connecticut casino in Northern
Connecticut to offset losses suffered by a new $950 million MGM casino in
(Springfield) Massachusetts. The interests of the Massachusetts casino will be
represented by Global Strategies, one of whose Vice Presidents is Roy Occhiogrosso, formerly
a chief-cook-and-bottle washer for Mr. Malloy.

Immediately upon occupying office, Mr. Bronin was forced to
confront problems dropped on his plate by his predecessor, including a poorly
negotiated contract for a ball field, extreme violence in a city named several
weeks ago as the murder capital of New England, a failing education system the
monetary resources of which are imperiled by an old court case that mandates
race ratios in schools, and other inconveniences sometimes associated with
calcified one-party governments. Nearly
all Connecticut’s larger cities have been
sunk in the bog of single-party government for decades. Hegemonic political
structures are inherently corrupt – ask anyone in China, Russia, Cuba or
Venezuela -- because politicians yield to temptations more often when, in the
absence of an operative moral order, there are no critical eyes from a vigorous
opposition to report slovenly political behavior to an alert media. The
watchful eyes of God may always be fixed upon us, but the FBI sometimes sleeps,
and even when it gets its man and sends him to prison, voters occasionally elevate the felon to a mayoralty.

Mr. Bronin’s administration has agreed to kick in an extra
$3.5 million for the problem-plagued ball park in Hartford. After negotiating a
deal with all the culprits involved to cover a $10 million cost overrun, Mr.
Bronin presented his deal to Hartford residents.

“Where are you going to slash and burn,” one resident
demanded, “to cover [the additional $3.5 million]? Because raising taxes, you
understand, is a no-deal.”

His administration, Mr. Bronin responded, would
“aggressively” seek state and federal funding to offset projected shortfalls in
Hartford’s budget of $10 million next year and $30 million the following year.

Unfunded pension
liabilities in Connecticut amount to about $26 billion; Mr. Malloy
is attempting to muscle through the Democratic dominated General Assembly his
legacy item, a 30 year $100 billion state infrastructure redesign program; and
the state is struggling with yet another multi-million dollar deficit weeks
after putting its biennial budget to bed. The penurious federal government is
nurturing a national debt that will reach $20 trillion by the time the lame duck
President leaves office, half of which was accumulated during the Obama
administration. Mr. Malloy's budget number crunchers once again have overestimated tax
receipts: During the next year, the big spenders in Connecticut’s General
Assembly will receive $73 million less in projected tax receipts, and – big
surprise – Connecticut will be receiving $46 million less in federal grants.

Should the proverbial “man from
Mars” drop by, he, she (or it) would likely advise sharp spending cuts as a
remedy for Connecticut’s downward slump, which recently has featured a dramatic
move of General Electric from Connecticut to Massachusetts. Unfortunately,
Connecticut is not being run from Mars; it is being administered by the Malloy
administration and dominant Democrats in what can only be described as a
one-party, crony capitalist state that parallels Connecticut's largest one-party cities. While all the Governor’s men are looking up, everyone else in the state is
looking down, ashamed because they are broke.